Blood World (Undying Mercenaries Series Book 8) Read online

  Sargon, taking the part of veteran seriously, used his own boot to wake Carlos up. With a hiss and curse, Carlos straightened. Kivi did the same, before she caught a boot in the butt as well.

  “Well done, Veteran,” Harris murmured.

  Sargon said nothing, but I could tell the praise made him proud. Harris had been our Veteran for many years, and he’d only been moved up into the officer ranks recently.

  “Good…” Turov said, eyeing the crowd and apparently liking what she saw. “I can see you understand the importance of this day. Chief Inspector Xlur will operate as one of the judges of this contest. He will not vote—but he will be watching with keen interest.”

  I glanced at Winslade, hoping he had some insight into what kind of contest we could expect. More lizards?

  Noticing my scrutiny, Winslade merely widened his eyes and fractionally shrugged his shoulders in response. Apparently, he didn’t know what we had in store for us either. On the other hand, he could be faking it. You just couldn’t tell with Winslade. He was as slippery as a snake oil salad.

  “Let’s get down to it. The results of the first day’s contest were inconclusive. The best teams—Group Four and Group Twenty-One, suffered only a single loss each.”

  At the mention of their numbers, one pack from Germanica and another from The Iron Eagles cheered.

  That made me frown a bit. Sure, Group Nine had lost half our people, but we’d killed our lizard. That ought to count for an extra death or two.

  “Due to this lack of a clear winner, we’ve decided to eliminate half the contestants due to their incompetence. Every group that had no or only one survivor is hereby dismissed. I thank you for your service.”

  Up and down the lines, there was a shuffling. About ten groups walked away, shaking their heads. Some cursed, some cheered weakly.

  The other groups grinned at them and flashed eyebrows. This was met with angry words, and in a single case, a fist was thrown.

  It came as no surprise to anyone that the belligerent soldier was from Solstice. They had a rep that was almost as bad as Legion Varus. In fact, it occurred to me as the unruly Solstice Veteran was thrown out of the room, that if one of our Varus groups had been kicked out and sneered at, there would have been more punches thrown—maybe a lot of them.

  Turov watched this display sourly.

  “There! You see that? That demonstrates the lack of discipline that probably caused them to die like rats in the first place! Don’t allow them to trouble your thoughts again! You’re better than them! All of you!”

  A ragged cheer went up, although the remaining half was beginning to wonder what they’d won through their success.

  Carlos wasn’t under any illusions. “I screwed us,” he said in a low tone. “I’m sorry guys. I think I should have let that lizard eat us all, like so much ground-up cat food.”

  No one said anything, but I couldn’t help but wonder if he would prove to be right in the end.

  Turov smiled and slammed her small hands together, making a popping sound. “Congratulations, winners! You will go on! You will be outfitted, and prepped, and you will prove yourselves again! Remember, Xlur will be watching!”

  Again, the ragged cheer broke out. It was far from full-throated, however.

  Turov cleared off the stage, and the wall behind her yawned open. After a moment, it became clear it was a smart-wall, one that could be reconfigured to the dimensions and shape required.

  “Up!” Graves shouted from behind us. “Up on that stage! Advance, take a weapon, and move into the pits!”

  The pits?

  We turned away from him, back toward the stage. We could see now that the area behind it was quite large. A series of depressions were visible when we climbed onto the raised area and advanced.

  Between us and these “pits” were racks of weapons. They were all basic in nature. Knives, spears, swords and a few throwing axes.

  “Whoa,” Carlos said, “this is going to suck more than I thought.”

  Sargon ignored him and vaulted onto the raised area. I understood the whole stage-thing better now. It had never been a stage. In order to create pits, they’d been forced to raise the floor, as the bottom of the vault was pure puff-crete, one of the hardest substances known to man.

  Sargon wasn’t fooling around. He rushed the racks and grabbed for a spear.

  I happened to know, from past experiences, that he was a gifted man with a spear. He could throw one like he was born to it.

  But unfortunately, he wasn’t alone. Another big fellow with hair braided tightly against his head had rushed for the weapon racks as well. Both of them, apparently, were interested in the spear, valuing its reach.

  The second man was from Germanica. He tried to snatch the spear away from Sargon.

  “Hold on!” I shouted, running up to them. “Hold on, now!”

  “We haven’t got any instructions yet,” Harris called out. He was right behind me.

  Sargon and the other man eyed one another in cold anger. Then, suddenly, Sargon shrugged and gave him a smile. His grip loosened, and the Germanica asshole yanked the spear away.

  “This will end up in your guts, Varus!” he shouted, laughing.

  Happy, the Germanica man turned away and walked with an exaggerated swagger toward his team, who hooted at us. He shook the spear overhead like a trophy.

  In his last moments, he opened his big mouth again, no doubt intending to hurl a fresh insult toward my people—but he never got the chance.

  Sargon had grabbed up an axe. Without hesitation, with an even stride, he walked up behind the Germanica man and split his skull right down the middle.

  The sound was like that of a melon striking a sidewalk. Blood exploded, but Sargon snatched up the fallen spear from dead fingers with a wide grin. He even waved it at the dead man’s friends.

  “Oh, gee-zus—” Harris began. “Damn it, Sargon!”

  The Germanica people lost it. They snatched up weapons from the racks, shouting with rage.

  I sensed things were getting out of hand early, so I took up the axe Sargon had discarded. After all, it had been pretty effective.

  -9-

  “DIE, VARUS!” the Germanica people roared as one.

  “HALT!” boomed a deafening voice, amplified by a throat mic from the end of the stage.

  It was a narrow thing, but we did all pause, snarling at one another.

  Tribune Deech approached at a leisurely pace. She looked at the dead man and put her hands on her wide hips.

  “This is a violation of the rules,” she said. “No one is supposed to strike until you’re in your assigned pits and given the go-ahead.”

  “No one told us that,” I said. “My man was challenged, and he took action.”

  “McGill…?” Deech said, recognizing me and looking me over. “Your team is off the rails already, huh? Why am I not surprised?”

  “Can you tell us the rules, sir? We obviously don’t know them.”

  “All right. It’s pretty simple. We’re placing two teams in every pit for two minutes. Whichever group defeats the enemy and crawls out with the most members standing wins. You broke those rules, so you lose by default.”

  The Germanica group hooted and laughed.

  “But no one told us anything,” I said again stubbornly.

  “That’s true…” Deech said thoughtfully. “Imperator Turov was supposed to do it, but she seems distracted today. Two more damned sentences added to her speech would have done it.”

  “Tribune Deech!” another voice called out, and a tall figure approached. “Perhaps I can be of some assistance with your animals.”

  We all looked up. It was none other than Tribune Maurice Armel. He had a French accent, a wispy mustache riding above a set of sneering lips, and most importantly, he was the leader of Legion Germanica.

  “Maurice,” Deech said. “I’d welcome your input.”

  “The rules are the rules,” he said. “I know such cold logic hurts, especially
when it’s applied to a group of feral, emotion-driven creatures such as yours, but—there it is.”

  Deech looked annoyed, but I was worried. She was, at the bottom of her heart, a woman who believed in law and order. Quite possibly, she was the straightest arrow in Legion Varus. Maybe that’s why they’d made her our overall commander.

  A faint smile played over Armel’s face now. He knew Deech well. He knew our tribune was a sucker for an argument like that, one that appealed to the strict letter of the law.

  “We can fix it,” I said loudly. “I’ll give up Sargon. He’ll step aside. He’s our best man in a pit-fight. That way, it will be five-on-five from the start.”

  Armel made a big show of considering my proposal carefully. He squinted, and he rubbed at his swarthy chin. But at last, he ended this act with a regretful shake of his head.

  “I’m afraid not,” he said. “You’ve clearly planned this whole thing out. Legion Varus is infamous for such trickery, such foul deceit. I wouldn’t even be surprised to learn—”

  “How in the hell could we plan something?” I demanded, losing my temper at last. “We didn’t even know what the rules were until—”

  “McGill,” Tribune Deech said in a commanding voice. “Stand down.”

  I shut up. I had some respect for Deech, even though we didn’t always see eye-to-eye.

  “We’ll forfeit this round,” Deech said. “It’s unfortunate, but I don’t see any other way to solve this, and we need to move ahead.”

  “Very, very gracious of you, Tribune,” Armel said. “In fact, if you’d enjoy having a drink together while we observe the rest of this glorious contest, I’d like to invite you—”

  “Don’t worry about it, McGill,” Winslade said loudly, turning his back on the two tribunes and the grinning Germanica assholes. He patted me on the shoulder. “They got lucky, and they know it. We would have torn them apart.”

  “What?” Armel said, narrowing his eyes and turning his head to follow us. “What was it one of your apes said, Deech?”

  Winslade gave me a subtle wink.

  Instantly, I got the message. Damn, I thought, I should have come up with it myself.

  “There’s no shame in it,” I said loudly, turning back to face them. “Everyone has to know when to fight, and when to run. There’s no shame in that at all, Tribune.”

  Armel was stock-still, his gaze burning in my direction. I could tell he was at war internally. It was entertaining to try and guess which side of him was going to win out: his brain, or his sense of pride.

  “You would dare call a Germanica team… cowards?” he asked.

  “Well now,” I said, crossing my arms. “You’re the one who came up with that word, not us. You must have thought it up all by yourself. But now that you’ve put it out there… this whole thing does seem fishy. Could it be that Germanica was the one doing the scheming here? Seriously Tribune? All this just to get out of a fair fight?”

  Behind my back, my team had gathered. We were solid now, I realized. We weren’t catcalling and making obscene gestures—but we were grinning smugly.

  “No one will say such a thing,” Armel announced. “No Varus trash will ever dare to claim a Germanica man piddled himself in fear. I hereby accept your offer. You have only to ban this shaved ape named Sargon from the pit, and my team will defeat yours honorably.”

  “Done!” Tribune Deech said. “Pair off against your opposing groups, everyone! This contest will last for two minutes. The team with the best combination score, based on kills and men left standing, will win.”

  A murmur swept the crowd, punctuated by a few energetic whoops and threats.

  “To kick off the event,” Deech continued, “I’m going to count down slowly from ten. When I get to one, everyone will have a single second to get your ass into that pit and start fighting. Good luck, and do your best!”

  A roar went up from the assembled teams. We’d been readying ourselves mentally and physically all this time, stretching, gripping our weapons, and rubbing talc into our sweating palms.

  “…Ten!” shouted Deech.

  Pounding feet sounded all over the raised stage. Groups assembled on opposite sides of each pit. Our mouths opened of their own accords. Our lungs sucked in air, and we let it hiss back out through our teeth.

  “…Nine!”

  I felt my heart pound, and I waved my axe overhead in challenge to Germanica, they snarled in return. We were ready.

  “…Eight!”

  Off at the far end of the chamber, a sound distracted us. A section of the smart-wall began to peel away. Behind this was what amounted to rows of seats and cordoned off areas.

  A throng of onlookers sat there, perched on what looked like cushy chairs.

  “What the fuck…?” Harris asked next to me, and I seconded the emotion. We had spectators?

  “…Seven!”

  “Hey!” Kivi said, pointing into the stands. “Look up there… isn’t that Xlur himself?”

  It was indeed the Chief Inspector. Physically, the Mogwa was a spidery alien with a central thorax of waxy black. Xlur’s six limbs operated as either arms or legs. Each of his terminating hands—or feet—could be used to manipulate objects.

  “…Six!” Deech boomed.

  “McGill,” Carlos said at my side. “I want you to know how uncool this whole thing is.”

  “…Five!”

  “What?” I asked, turning to him in confusion.

  “You could have let it go, man. You could have let us forfeit out, and we’d be done with this shit. But noooo, you just had to—”

  “…Four!”

  “Carlos,” I interrupted, “you look across that pit.”

  Reluctantly, he did so.

  “…THREE!”

  “You really wanted me to let Armel humiliate us? Really? Then you can stay out of this.”

  “What?”

  “…TWO!”

  “You heard me! Stay out of the pit! You stand up here and save your skin. Why don’t you piss yourself too, while you’re at it?”

  “ONE!” Deech roared at last, and a huge cry rolled up from the fighters. Even the audience of high-ranking officers joined in.

  I threw myself into the pit, and my eager gang followed. Even Winslade jumped in without hesitation.

  Winslade’s example might have shamed Carlos. He hopped in after us, screaming out a single word: “VARUS!”

  -10-

  I was angry. I don’t mind admitting it. Sure, that’s not the best state of mind to be in at the start of a serious fight, but it’s not the worst, either.

  As an opener, I took a chance. Sometimes, that’s what a leader has to do: get things started.

  Cocking back my arm, I gripped Sargon’s axe and heaved it into the thick of the enemy.

  The pit itself was about ten meters across, if I had to guess. That might sound like plenty of room—but it isn’t. There were ten of us inside that limited space, and it felt like we were ten mice trapped in a shoebox.

  With only a split-second to dodge, the lead man in the approaching group managed it—but the guy hiding behind him didn’t. I nailed him full in the chest.

  The axe chopped right through his breastbone and kept going. Damn, that thing was sharp! It must have a monofilament blade on the head.

  Whatever the stage surrounding our pit was made of, it must have been something porous, because the axe thunked into it and pinned the squirming, dying legionnaire there.

  Now, with only four souls left to face five, Germanica’s team didn’t look so smug. Of course I’d managed to disarm myself, so I fell back, letting my team wrap around me and move forward.

  Harris had chosen a long knife from the racks. There was no surprise in that, as he was an expert with that particular weapon. He took the point position of our group without being ordered to, and he did so with relish.

  Unfortunately, he was faced by a man with a sword—a rapier. Harris tried to get in close, but the enemy was a wiry fellow, quick on
his feet. He seemed to know what he was doing with a long blade, and he stop-thrust Harris and hurt him bad.

  I dared to turn my head, looking from side to side at the rest of this mess of a fight. Winslade and Carlos were both sparring with their opponents, tapping weapons and making fake jabs—without going for the kill.

  At the center of the ring, Kivi was standing behind Harris. I could tell she was looking for an opening. The swordsman struck again, and he ran Harris clean through.

  Kivi saw her chance. She darted in while Harris had the swordsman’s weapon bound up with his ribs, and she clocked the man on the left knee with a weighted club. He went down, howling.

  That might have meant a victory for us, but Harris began convulsing. He died on the wood chips littering the floor of the pit with red-rimmed teeth.

  I tried to dash in and snatch up Harris’ fallen knife, but these Germanic friggers were on top of their game. I got my hand pinned down by some kind of forked stick.

  Damn, that hurt, but the tines of the big fork didn’t penetrate the puff-crete under the wood chips. I was able to rip my hand loose and send the owner sprawling on top of Harris. It was a woman, and she hadn’t been prepared for the strength of my yanking motion.

  I could move again, but my right hand was a wreck. I held it up against my body, kind of curled, dangling and bleeding at the same time. I figured the tendons were gone.

  Seeing a shot at glory, the girl grinned and pulled back for another savage thrust with her trident-thing. Backpedalling wasn’t going to cut it, because the rim of the pit was only a few feet behind me. I dodged, but I could see right off that wasn’t going to work, either. She meant to plant that thing in me, and all I could do was try to take it in a less vital spot.

  But then, the game shifted again. Winslade bounced into view behind her. He slid in a weapon that looked for all the world like an icepick. He stabbed several times. He was good—if he caught you from behind.

  The girl who’d been trying to fork me collapsed, stunned and choking.

  I got my balance after that and snatched up Harris’ knife with my good hand. I had it in my left, but that didn’t bother me. You didn’t get far in Legion Varus if you couldn’t defend yourself while wounded.